| Additional Information: | A 'site file' exists for this property. It contains additional information such as correspondence, newspaper clippings, or historical information. It is a public record and may be viewed in person at the Wisconsin Historical Society, State Historic Preservation Office.
Large braces distinguish Belmont's board and batten depot. The community of Belmont was developed as a railroad stop between Calamine, a station on the Mineral Point line from Warren, Illinois, to Mineral Point, and Platteville, Grant County's major mining center. The first attempt to link these two points occurred in 1861 when the Platteville and Calamine Railroad Company, which within the year was purchased by the Mineral Point Railroad, was incorporated. Construction, though strongly supported by Platteville residents, was delayed by the Civil War and by lack of capital. This latter problem was overcome in 1867 when legislation allowed local citizens to provide aid (they subscribed $270,000 of stock) for the road. With this assistance, work commenced at Calamine on September 21, 1867, and the line, by that time known as the Dubuque, Platteville & Milwaukee Railroad, reached Platteville in July 1870.
At Belmont, which had been surveyed in 1868 by railroad engineer William A. Garden, the first train arrived on October, 1869, (A depot was constructed at the time of the railroad's arrival but it is not clear that this vacant depot is the 1869 structure).
In 1880 the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad Company took control of the Platteville to Calamine line. |
|---|
| Bibliographic References: | (A) Iconography Division, State Historical Society.
(B) Dale Roger Fatzinger, "Historical Geography of Lead and Zinc Mining in Southwest Wisconsin 1820-1920: A Century of Change" (Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State University, 1971), p. 117.
(C) History of Lafayette County, Wisconsin (Chicago: Western Historical Co., 1881), p. 622.
(D) John W. Cary, The Organization and History of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company (Chicago: Cramer, Aikens & Cramer, 1893), pp. 250-251. |
|---|
